Looking back at my life, one of my biggest fears was the dim realization of my inability to cope in a constantly changing world. Everyone I knew was heading in a certain direction and seemed so sure of themselves. On the contrary, I was not sure at all, yet I was keenly aware of my own shakey existence. At the time, I did not want to look at this contradiction for fear that there were no real answers.
Vernon Howard wrote in his book “The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power” the following story which illustrates how anyone can make sense of this world and find a happier place to live. What a great secret!
THE GREATEST SECRET ON EARTH
“What is the cause and cure of a man’s or a woman’s problems on earth?”
That is the foremost question ever formed in the human mind. Discovering the cause and applying the cure is the purpose of this book.
Mankind can be likened to a large party of tourists searching for new homesite. They board a train that can take them from a dry and dreary desert to a grand and lofty mountain top. The travel guide assures them that the higher they go, the greater their capacity to see and enjoy the countryside.
There are station stops all along the upward way. A tourist may get off and end his trip at any point he likes. He is perfectly free to cut himself short, or to continue all the way to the top.
Some get off at the first stop. They find themselves in desolate country. They settle down in secret despair.
Others go on for another station or two, then take their leave of the train. Their location is somewhat better, but, still, they settle down with a vague uneasiness.
A few others, the enduring ones, keep going. Somewhere along the early part of the journey, they made a fascinating discovery: Though the trip certainly has its challenges, the farther they go the easier it becomes. Patience and persistence present sure rewards. So they eagerly press on. As they do so, they reach the peaks of happy and unworried living. With enormous relief, they find that the mountain-top was not just something announced in the travel guide; it is real, it is there, it is theirs.
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INNER LIFE EXERCISE
(from Freedom from a Life of Hell by Vernon Howard)
66. HEALTHY LIGHT You break out of hell by breaking out of your habitual mind. This usual mind is a prison in which you worriedly pace back and forth. Break out now! Here is how. First, memorize the sentence: Seeing suspends thinking. Next, several times during your day just see yourself in action. Casually notice yourself as you walk or eat or rest. This suspends worried thought and allows the healthy light of pure insight to shine upon you. Practice constantly. Results will come.
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Seeing suspends thinking. Impartiality can enter. Our Beloved can enter.
Seeing requires effort to see impartially
FALSE SELF, FALSE PERSONALITY I
False personality is always against the Work for self development and it can never be useful. We call it “I” and think it is behind all manifestations, when in reality it is an imaginary picture of ourselves. Work is struggle with false personality which will fight back, chiefly thru lying, for lying is it’s strongest weapon. In studying false personality we begin to see mechanicalness more and more. What’s real? Start by realizing that it is all false personality, then try to find out what is not (Real). Work begins from the moment one realizes that ONE IS NOT. Also it must be remembered that false personality is often rather attractive or amusing, particularly for other people who live in their false personalities. So when you begin to lose your false personality, when you begin to struggle with it, people will not like you. They will tell you that you have become dull.
~P. D. Ouspensky
FALSE SELF, FALSE PERSONALITY II
Q. How can one tell what is NOT the false personality?
Mr. Ouspensky: One thing the false personality cannot do is make EFFORTS. This is the easiest way to know, if you are in doubt. False personality always tries to make everything as easy as possible, always chooses what requires the least effort. But you must understand that you cannot learn anything or change anything without EFFORT.
If you had permanent ‘I’, you would be able to remember yourself for 15 hours! …We have to learn we are too used to the unreal. We are identified with our imaginary picture of ourselves and it is a very dangerous form of identification.
You can outgrow Miss B. ONLY FROM YOUR INTEREST IN THE SYSTEM, because real ‘I’ cannot grow from anything else.
I repeat again–you must understand that false personality is a combination of all lies, features, and ‘i’s that can NEVER be useful in any sense, either in life or in Work—just like negative emotions.
So, at first I said that you have to abstain from analysis and just OBSERVE, OBSERVE, OBSERVE, nothing more…time for analysis will come….
Q. What is the origin of these artificial groups of ‘i’s (false personality).
Mr. Ouspensky: They may be formed by imitation, desire to be original, to be attractive, to be admired by people and so on.
~P. D. Ouspensky